


1 Corinthians 15:12

by kallliope



Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Catholic Guilt, Drinking, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Swearing, mentions of past sexual abuse, there's a reason why they're called Mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 10:07:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11965179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kallliope/pseuds/kallliope
Summary: Jessica knew him for a week, at most.So she can't understand why she keeps visiting him.Or giving him things.





	1 Corinthians 15:12

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for those who haven't watched the Defenders!

She didn’t attend the funeral. Trish chastised, but Jessica ignored her. She hated the vulnerability, the utter exposure a funeral demanded. When it came to grief, Jessica knew only one type: the silent kind, the kind that accompanied ten bottles of whiskey.

Halfway through the seventh bottle, she found herself stumbling up the small hills of Mount Zion Cemetery and coming to a stop at the newest headstone.

**Matthew Michael Murdock**

_Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes._

_Ephesians 6:11_

“Ironic to the end.” Jessica muttered, taking a swig from her whiskey bottle. A riot of flowers leaned against Matt’s headstone, and she recognized Trish’s daffodils nestled between a bunch of myrtle blossoms.

_And you didn’t even get him a goddamn daisy._

She looked around the rows of limestone angels and granite tombs. Plenty of available bouquets on them, but even she wasn’t  _that_ much of an asshole. Jessica hunted through the grass, hoping for wildflowers (hell, even a dandelion could’ve sufficed), but found the graveyard neater than she’d hoped—not a stray weed anywhere. She sighed and finally set her half-full whiskey bottle down before Matt’s grave.

“You’ll need it, Murdock, up in...Heaven? Hell? Wherever the fuck you went to,” she said. “They better give you a damn good compensation, because playing the martyr card should definitely count you out of Purgatory.”

The silence she got for an answer made her realize she looked ridiculous, like those cliche movie scenes where the side characters talked to graves to ‘move on’. 

Shit. She had to stop wandering when she drank.   

Jessica picked her way out of the graveyard clumsily, pretending not to see the open tomb for Elektra Natchios.

 

* * *

 

She made her next visit sober and with a more thoughtful offering.

As she stopped at Matt’s grave, she tried the glasses on and frowned through the scarlet lenses.

_He should’ve cut out the whole red aesthetic. For all his coverups, the NYPD could’ve easily caught him with one look at the amount of red crap in his apartment._

Jessica kneeled and carefully propped the glasses against the tombstone. The people who kept the graveyard clean probably thought her a litterer; the whiskey bottle she left behind was gone.

Well, screw that. Better he got his glasses back than vapid cards or wilted two-dollar flowers. Some dramatic ass even left a crown of thorns on top of his headstone.

The metaphor hit too close to home: a figure willing to die for others’ sins.

She looked away, but already tasted blood and ash—the last remainder of Midland Circle that never washed away from her mouth, no matter how many Jack Daniels she downed.

“You didn’t have to—” she started, and stopped herself. No time for soliloquies tonight. Her client wanted pictures from Steinway Street.

She checked the time and cursed; the visit to Matt’s grave held her up fifteen minutes instead of the estimated five.

As she turned away, she almost heard his low chuckle, a mixture of mild surprise and light amusement.

Which was stupid, because there wasn’t even anything in his damn coffin.  

 

* * *

 

She clutched the walking stick in her hand as the train pulled out of the station, glaring at anyone who gave her a pitiful glance. What would someone like her need a walking stick for? Definitely some disease or handicap that’s not visible. That’s it, Irene, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Let’s give her a sympathetic look so she knows we’re not inconsiderate assholes.

Because handicapped individuals needed 24/7 kid-glove treatment. Jesus, she had half a mind to go to the church and request sainthood for Matt; she couldn’t fathom how he endured all the half-hearted pity.  

When Jessica finally set Matt’s walking stick down on his grave, she noted with a small scoff that the graveyard cleaners took away his glasses. Apparently, a pair of glasses—something Matt had  _actually_   _owned_ —made a graveyard polluted, but God forbid that a bunch of dead flowers and that stupid crown of thorns go in the trash.

Nelson, Matt’s ex-lawyer-in-crime, came barging into her office one day with a whole batch of his sticks to her, claiming that he couldn’t bear to sell them off. Somehow, word got out to everyone that she frequently visited Mount Zion Cemetery (she suspected Danny; every few weeks, he shadowed her out of some weird obligation to make sure she was fine).

As soon as Nelson left, she downed three Kentucky bourbons in six minutes and walked all the way to Mount Zion with  _one_ stick in hand.

_Did he think I’d just dump them all? The people who run the place wouldn’t let me near his grave again._

At the last thought, Jessica’s fingers curled into fists. She knew Matt for less than a week, and she already hated the idea of never visiting his grave. Murdock must have bargained with God or the Devil, because he’d gotten under her skin quicker than most. Posthumously, no less.

Or he must have met her family. Damn, that opened up a whole new door of hell. He’d know about everything she hid under her sharp, infamous reputation. The angst of her preteen years. The pencil marks on her doorway tracking her height. The amateur photographs of her old neighborhood.

_Be glad I’m giving your stick back, Murdock. If you’re chatting with my little brother for dirt on me, I’m not coming back._

 

* * *

 

Jessica returned next week, holding a neatly pressed—if not a little worn—two-piece suit in her arms. A maroon tie dangled from her fingers, while a white shirt balanced precariously on top of the suit. All three of them smelled of laundry detergent; Matt’s landlord insisted a wash, claiming the dust on the fabrics would stick and stay.

Unfortunately, the landlord forgot that the laundromat charged extra for dry clean only.

_You owe me seventeen dollars, Murdock._

Jessica started to drape the whole ensemble over Matt’s tombstone, trying to keep her pettiness in check. Dropping Matt’s clothes on the ground would definitely give them grass stains that would never wash out. And she was an  _adult_ , goddamn it, so she laid his outfit out on his grave with the proficiency of an experienced undertaker.

The people who ran the graveyard probably thought her now as the strange aunt who left behind even stranger memorabilia. They hated her, no doubt. The stuff she left behind meant more work for them.

Jessica huffed; she hadn’t  _asked_ to carry out Murdock’s things. She just wanted to be a decent person and visit his grave with the occasional gift. Unfortunately, that now equated to ‘personal messenger of Matt’s effects’ in everyone else’s heads.

This was what she deserved for showing that she cared.

And if Hogarth got wind of her new Good Samaritan deeds, she’d laugh in Jessica’s face and never take her seriously again.

Fucking Murdock. 

“There, you asshole.” she grumbled, throwing the red tie on top of the shirt. “I hope you’re happy.”

She stalked away just as a disturbing thought started to form in her mind. She’d never given a gift of her own. Everything she left at the grave belonged to Matt. Even the bottle of whiskey she gave him wasn’t hers; she’d pinched it off the bar counter and slunk out once the bartender turned his head away from her.

She sneered at the half-hearted tributes for Matt, but she’d never given him an original gift of her own. The utter hypocrisy of it all made her stop in her tracks and then stomp back, incensed.

_For fuck’s sake._

Jessica ripped her scarf off her neck, flung it on Matt’s grave, and then stormed out of the cemetery, her boots leaving crescent shaped moons in the soft earth.

 

* * *

 

She planned no more visits; more cases started to trickle into Alias Investigations and for three weeks, Jessica chased stalkers, unfaithful partners, and creepers across the maze of Manhattan.

So when Jessica happened to glance at Matt’s grave as she passed Mount Zion Cemetery late one night, she  _froze_.

Unsurprisingly, Matt’s outfit and her scarf were gone.

However, she never remembered leaving a cardboard box next to his tombstone.

One broken gate lock later, Jessica held the box in her hands. She shook it carefully, and heard the faint rustle of bubble wrap. Fragile. Probably not a trap.

Probably.

Jessica instinctively tensed, ears straining to hear the deadly hiss of metal swords in the dark. But no Hand agent pounced from behind a tombstone.

Cautiously, Jessica peeled the tape off the top of the box and unfolded the cardboard flaps.

Once she removed the bubble wrap, she found herself staring at a brand new Canon EOS 80D.

No note, no signature of any kind. The camera carried the intended message on its own.

_I have pictures, asshole._

She carried the box all the way back to Hell’s Kitchen, her mind firing a dozen thoughts a minute. Jesus, was this her new normal? Getting hounded by ghosts at every turn? Her breath started coming to her erratically, and she forced herself to breathe. Birch Street. Higgins Drive. Cobalt fucking Lane.  

_You’re just overreacting. That shit that resurrected Elektra got buried under a pile of rubble._

And yet, Matt got buried too. What other ghosts would come back to life to haunt her again? Jessica killed Kilgrave with her bare hands; was he coming back to her with a lopsided neck?

After she entered her apartment, she dropped the camera on her desk like a hot coal, diving for the scotch she kept in times of absolute shit.

She only got down two mouthfuls when she heard the fire escape rattle. Jessica slowly put down the bottle and silently crossed the room to wrench open her door.

A few minutes later, Matt Murdock waltzed into her apartment, wearing all the things Jessica laid on his grave. Her scarf did little to hide the scruff of a new beard.

“How?” Jessica asked flatly, keeping her heartbeat low.

Matt smiled, clutching his walking stick. “Catholicism. Works wonders.”

She punched him so hard that his back nearly cracked the wall she just fixed.

 

* * *

 

“I’m still not apologizing.” Jessica said, looking through her fridge.

Matt sighed from the couch, rubbing his now-purpled jaw. “I don’t expect you to.”  

“Don’t give me self-pity, Murdock. We’ve got a shit ton of paperwork to sort out now, and you’ve got ten seconds for a good explanation, or so help me I’ll throw you out the fucking door.”

“Your door doesn’t even open properly.”

In retaliation, Jessica threw a bag of ice cubes at Matt’s head. He caught it just before it hit him, which made her suspect he  _let_ her punch him.

“Start talking, jerk.”

In short terms, Catholicism really did save his life. In long terms, his long-lost nun mother saved her son from the brink of death. In other terms, Jessica’s life was apparently a comic-book now, with kung fu warriors in office buildings and dead people visiting her apartment.  

“Did you even think about calling us?” she asked bluntly, interrupting a long speech about the bizarre meetings between him and his mother.

“I couldn’t think of an option in the convent. Everything in there’s too quiet, and it’s hard to concentrate when you feel like you’re floating in nothingness.”

“So.” Jessica said, counting off her fingers. “You reunited with your mom, spent time healing away in a convent, and thought it too difficult to think of actually warning us like a decent person?”

Matt fidgeted. “I’m—”

“ _Save it_. I’m not finished.”

He nodded. Despite the sharp lines of his suit, he managed to look like his shoulders sagged with regret.

She felt a small twinge of guilt, but she quashed it with her anger. She opened her mouth, intent on getting answers, starting with why the hell he let her put all his stuff on his grave instead of meeting with her earlier.

“Where’d you get the camera?”

_Goddammit, Jones._

Matt blinked behind his glasses, startled. Jessica hid her own surprise by nabbing the scotch bottle on her desk and starting to chug down the whole thing.

“Uh, Foggy didn’t shut down my bank account yet. And I went to a place on 39th Street—long way from Hell’s Kitchen.”

Jessica gulped down the last dregs of her drink and threw the empty bottle in the wastebasket. “So what, was that your idea of a ‘surprise I’m not dead’ memo?”

Matt knitted his fingers together and leaned forward, the surprise from his face draining to leave behind a more serious expression. “The camera was something I owed you long before this. I owe you a lot more now, above all an apology. You kept giving me things on my grave and I spat on your kindness by just taking them and not telling you I was alive.”

“And?”

“You have no reason to believe me anymore, but I’m truly sorry that I acted like such a selfish bastard.” Matt said, casting his eyes downwards. “I made you believe that I was dead, and I of all people should’ve known that seeing a dead person come back to life would give you a shock.”

The silence in the apartment practically crackled.

And broke with a huge sigh of exasperation from Jessica.

“Contrary to your beliefs,” she started, getting up. “You weren’t the first one to come back to life to haunt me.”

Matt stayed silent as she crossed the room to rummage through her fridge again. After finding a bottle of Heaven Hill in the back corner, she kicked the door shut and swiped two glasses from the sink.

“And no matter what you might think,” she said, handing an empty glass to Matt. “I’m glad you’re back, asshole.”

Matt said nothing as she poured bourbon for both of them, but when they threw their heads back to drink, Jessica saw him hiding an unmistakable smile under the rim of his glass.

**Author's Note:**

> ** 1 Corinthians 15:12 **   
>  _But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection?_
> 
> Come scream with me about the Saltmates™ on my [tumblr](https://akajessmatt.tumblr.com).


End file.
